Page 177 of Fractured Loyalties

“No. He wasn’t.”

“You never told me your name used to be Eidolon.”

He closes his eyes. “It wasn’t a name. It was a mask.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s a threat. Because someone remembered I wore it.”

My hand trembles.

“You think this is about control?” I ask. “That he wants to use you?”

“No. He wants to consume me. Take everything I’ve buried and make me wear it again. For him.”

His eyes open. “And you. You’re leverage.”

“Then let’s go. Tonight. Let's leave everything. I'll cut off contact with Celeste, with Alec. And you cut off contact with Lydia. Let's just disappear."

“No,” he says flatly.

I blink. “No?”

“I’m not done yet.”

There’s a quiet between us. A new one. Not absence. Not silence. A sharpness. The edge where devotion and damage bleed together.

He reaches up, curling two fingers around my wrist.

“I won’t lose you. But I won’t run.”

I stare at him, heart hammering.

“I didn’t ask you to fight my monsters,” I say.

“No. But I’ve already started.”

I lower my mouth to his, pressing a kiss into his skin that tastes like blood and iron and something darker I can’t name.

He doesn’t flinch.

He pulls me closer, laying me down beside him on the cot, and we stay there till he falls asleep.

Elias falls asleep just before the storm begins.

Not a thunderstorm, not rain. Something colder. Quieter.

I'm sitting beside the cot now, one knee bent, my hand still resting lightly against his wrist. His breathing has evened, but he twitches now and then—barely, but enough to tell me he isn’t fully gone. Even unconscious, Elias doesn’t let go.

The room buzzes with faint electrical hums. Somewhere near the ceiling, a vent clinks every few minutes. Water pipes echo with the soft whine of pressure. Lydia and Kinley are in the hallway, speaking in low, clipped voices. They could be discussing reinforcements or nuclear war and still sound like they were reviewing inventory. It’s unnerving.

I lean back against the wall. The cot creaks slightly beneath Elias’s shifting weight.

Lydia steps back into the room, brushing dust from her sleeves. She glances at Elias, then at me. Her brow furrows slightly.

“I just checked the signal perimeter,” she says. “Someone pinged our extraction route from inside the city grid. Not passive. It was a hard redirect.”

My stomach tightens. “What does that mean?”